The Hunter's Bow
by DrasnianIntelligence21
Summary: When the Russo parents are killed by savage werewolves, it leaves a mark on the 5-year-old Alex. Years later she and her brothers form a prolific monster hunter team. What will happen when the three young adults track down those responsible? Will they be able to distinguish their feelings from the job at hand? And does the plot run thicker than it seems?
1. Prologue - The Beginning

The Hunter's Bow

Author's note:

In this story (based largely around Alex and Mason) Alex, Justin and Max were the children of two wizards when on one fateful night their parents were killed by vicious werewolves.

20 years later they become part of WSF (Wizard Security Force) which seeks to destroy the monsters and other criminals of the wizard world. They are ruthless, deadly and very professional. But when their next case becomes very, very personal, they must separate their own feelings from the job at hand.

Apart from that the story is the same as the programme.

Enjoy! Warning – Violence, Light Cursing and minor descriptions of death. No gore however.

Prologue –

The large house stood aloof and alone on the grassy green hill. To the rear lay vast rolling vistas crawling with wildlife. The house itself was enormous and, when coupled with the size of the hall, dwarfed the surrounding landscape. The night had descended gently over the countryside and everyone was asleep. Soundless, serene, silent. Apart from the window breaking.

Jerry woke with a start. He surely couldn't have imagined it. There had definitely been a sharp noise. The wizard felt a disturbance in the force. Had a vase broken? Was one of the kids awake? Or was it something else? He looked over at Theresa. He was immediately roused when he realised she wasn't there. He leapt out of the bed and padded over toward the door, wand in hand. After he reached the stairs he saw his wife at the bottom. She was looking up at him and motioned him to join her. He crept down the staircase so as not to wake his two boys and girl. It became apparent, as he neared the ground floor of the house that the latter required no such caution.

His daughter, Alex, was sitting on the floor playing with her toy rocket ship. She was a pretty young thing, with mousy brown hair and a pale complexion. She looked pure. She looked as innocuous as a lily. But she also looked troubled.

The two parents warily walked toward their recumbent daughter who by now was aware of their presence. They had been through this situation before, and they both knew the protocol. They would give her calm reassurance before carrying her to bed. But not tonight. Distracted by their daughter's insomnia, they didn't notice the glass in the kitchen.

"Mommy, Daddy, I had the same dream again. The one with… them."

"Who?" Asked Jerry, carefully.

"The ones behind you."

"What?" asked Theresa, before the werewolves leapt.

Alex's eyes snapped open. She was in the middle of the living room, playing with a toy rocket. She'd had _that _nightmare about _those_ things, and during her nightmare, had sleepwalked. She walked through the silent house. And then it wasn't silent. There was a low growling sound which made her curious. She opened the door to the kitchen, oblivious to shards of glass that tore rents in her feet. And then she screamed.

Mason Greyback had never wanted to come here. It felt odd to be attacking these blameless (as far as he was concerned) people and just killing them remorselessly. What had they done to him? His parents had finished their brutal work now. He didn't want to look at the bloody scene behind him. They'd brought him here to 'show the young pup the ropes' as they'd put it. Apparently his brothers is had all made their first kill on similar outings but he just couldn't bring himself to do it.

He turned sharply as the door creaked open. A girl was standing there. Something so small and tiny would be easily subdued. This could be his chance! Too bad his parents had noticed her too. He leapt in front of her, growling in his laughably high-pitched bark, "Mine!"

His parents smirk and release their interests in the small morsel. She has already fallen to the floor and he pins the wizard child beneath two heavy paws. She's still screaming. The noise is deafening. He suddenly notices her face. It is startlingly angelic.

He barely hears his parents telling him to hurry it up. But how can he destroy something so rich and so purely good? It seemed sinful, just plain wrong. He knew he shouldn't be feeling this. He was a child of darkness itself and he relished danger and violence. At least that's what his parents told him. But he couldn't think like that. Unlike his father and two brothers, he was fully dimorphic and had a human side which (unlike his mother and sister) often overpowered the wolf.

And so he made four exaggerated swipes of his paws, missing with each one, the blood on his paws (from walking through the blood-soaked kitchen) flying off and painting the walls. The girl had stopped screaming and fortunately had drifted into unconsciousness. He threw his head back and let out a howl of triumph. He leant down and rubbed his snout in the pool of blood she had fallen in before he turned to his parents gore slicking his face.

His parents growled congratulations before leaping through the open window, into the night. He did the same before turning to look one last time at the paralysed, stricken girl.

All he could think about through the night and the subsequent ones was the last horrified expression he saw on her face.


	2. Prologue - Aftermath

Prologue – Continued

That night marked the death of Jerry and Theresa Russo, Wizards employed at the Department of Magical Security and parents of a 6, 5 and 3-year-old. The surviving children were taken into care and were given psychological support as they grew up.

The two boys seemed stable. They went to mortal school and learn how to fit in, in mortal mundane life. They gained friends, formed relationships and won something they hadn't had since infancy. Normality. But the girl was far more scarred. She would often wake up at nights with horrible scars, having scratched herself in her sleep. She would also scream randomly and sporadically. She required regular emotional treatment but often rejected the attention given to her.

The only release she had ever gained was in a girl her age, named Harper. The two had met at a young age. Harper had been dragged along to her parents' couple counselling and whilst in the waiting room met the troubled young girl. The two became friends quickly and while doctors were completely baffled by Alex's quirks the ginger-haired girl always seemed to understand. And by the time she was 11, Alex was finally considered to be rehabilitated enough to join her brothers. They lived in an apartment funded by the fortune left to them by their parents. A social worker lived next to them and was ready to offer support when necessary.

By the time Alex was 13 the social worker wasn't necessary

Harper discovered her friend wielded magic at the age of 16 when round Alex's apartment and she found the wand she used.

The three siblings were poles apart personality-wise, but that brought them closer. And besides they all had one very important thing in common. They had all lost something dear to them.

And though the bleeding had stopped, the wound was bandaged. Time had seen to that. But there would always be the scar. There would always be the memory of _that _night hanging over them.

Alex was no longer a pure, innocent angel, but a hell-raising tough young woman. A vengeance burned within her and she vowed to exact it when she found a way. But that was just the problem. She had no way.

Until the day when she was 18 years old and had finished her wizard studies. She had lost the family wizard competition, but she had proven herself to be just as valuable an asset to the wizard world as either of her brothers. And so she (as well as Max who had also proven worthy, despite losing the competition) had been ordained with full powers and inducted into the Guild of Watchmen, the Wizard World's crime fighting group. Her brothers followed her into the trade.

Because while they were all different they had the important things in common including a cause. They would locate, chase down and destroy the people (Ha – people) who took their normal happy life from them.

They were Russo's. And they were hunters.


	3. Part I: The Case - Watchmen

Part 1: The Case – Chapter 1: Watchmen

Mancopolis was the largest city in the wizard world. More than 5 million wizards lived in harmony with 2 million assorted magical creatures. Well, most of the time.

Many large and magnificent buildings sprouted up from the ground like emergent trees in the Amazon. The tallest of which towered over even the presidential building, _Summa Basilica. _It was the Watchtower. Dull and grey, it stood out against the bright, iridescent infrastructure of the city. Despite its enormous size it was occupied only by three people.

Max was practising combat skills in the armoury. Justin was on the computer trying to hack into the database of a goblin crime ring, when his face fell. A message had come from Wizmail and it didn't bear happy reading. He slapped down the screen of the laptop and looked round the empty breakroom, with its bare tables and unwarmed seats. This place had once been filled with people, old and young, male and female. When he and his siblings had first joined the guild of watchmen there were dozens of law enforcers. Be they combatants, hackers, detectives or the fearsome hunters. As a rookie he'd been trained in all four disciplines along with Alex and Max, and while he and his brother had sort of been a mix, Alex would only ever be a hunter.

His sister, he knew, would be on the roof, smoking like she usually was when she didn't have a job. As Justin ascended the freezing metal staircase , he reflected on the fact that, in his 10 years of service in the Wizard Guild of Watchmen, the crime-fighting team had lost more members than any other decade in its entire history. Now there were just four of them left. In a moment's time, that number would fall to 3. It was depressing.

He was greeted by a sharp wind and a bitter cold as he made his way across the roof towards his motionless sister. Her only movement was occasionally lifting a small cigarette to her lips and inhaling. Then a short stream of smoke would fly from her mouth into crisp morning air.

He wondered how he should approach her. He walked to her side and stared out over the magical metropolis. Cars, hoverboards and magic carpets whizzed past beneath them. A long moment of silence had passed between them. He had absolutely no idea how to break the news to her. He tried engaging conversation with her. But where to start?

"Hey pass me one of those," he tried gesturing to the packet marked 'Marlborough.'

His sister scoffed, "Since when do you smoke?" she asked, but throwing him one anyway.

Then he blurted it out, "Since McCormick bought it." He immediately regretted that statement.

"What?" she exclaimed incredulously.

"No-N-Nothing," he stammered.

"McCormick's dead?" she asked, great blue orbs colouring her eyes.

"I know you liked him," Justin said, pathetically.

"Liked him? He was the only guy I ever loved. He was the only guy who ever loved m–" she faltered before breaking down in tears. Justin moved to embrace his tearful sister but she ran away before he could comfort her.

He was on breaking point too. The Wizard Guild of Watchmen was now down to just three members. And there'd been so many once; So many brave wizards who'd given their lives in the line of duty.

And now who was left? A psychologically unstable woman who suffered from episodes of vicious rage, a computer geek who used the shift key more than his wand or weapons and a man child who was convinced he was a ninja. Fan-freaking-tastic.


	4. PI CII - Funeral

P1 Ch2 – Funeral

The coffin was lowered into the ground by the faceless pallbearers. Rain drummed down on the wood and slopped onto the ground, churning the earth into a soupy, muddy mess. A memorial stone was placed in the ground, bearing the epitaph, 'James Nathaniel McCormick. Good cop, good friend, good man.' The very same message would be written on their coffins, like it had been for every member of the force. A one-legged troll with the crime-fighting ability of a dead spider and the social skills of a rampaging mongoose with bad breath would still be called a good cop.

But here was one of the genuine good cops. He was the first one to treat the siblings, especially Alex as if they were normal people. He had given them their training, their knowledge and most importantly a real friendship. And now, like all the others, McCormick was just another box in the dirt. In a cemetery empty but for trio of mourners, and the watchful stones, another life was cut short. Never to be fulfilled, never to be recognised as more than a few entries in a logbook and a computer file. A file to be relegated swiftly to the K.I.A section of the database.

He must have known, Alex thought, he must have. When she had read over the case McCormick had been undertaking she had gaped at the preposterous risks he had taken, and paid the price for.

The three wizards squelched across the bare cemetery towards the nearest bar. Three drinks later they became very contemplative.

"You know something," Alex said, just the hint of slur touching her voice, "there was no one, absolutely no one who cared about McCormick. No one came to his funeral, not even family. I mean," she stopped momentarily to drain her glass, "what's up with that?"

Justin felt uncomfortable in the rowdy atmosphere of the bar. A socially awkward young man, he took comfort in being the smartest person in the room. That still didn't stop any of the much taller stronger and more inebriated clientele snapping his neck should he mention this fact. So he decided to slouch down and keep away from engaging in conversation with strangers.

"He was the only child of only children and his parents were both killed in a place crash," he said flatly. Not normally an imbiber of alcohol, Justin felt surprisingly relaxed by the beverage. Unfortunately it loosened his tongue as well as his mind. "To be honest it's weird he didn't die sooner."

Alex was angry, "What? He was 26!"

"I was talking about his luck dumbass. I mean it wasn't just his parents, his grandparents all died young as well."

Max cut in at this point, "Still, you'd think a good guy like McCormick would have some friends outside the guards, wouldn't he?"

"Max, think about it," Alex reprimanded her younger brother. Thinking was becoming increasingly difficult for the trio, as the empty glasses continued to clang on the table. "All day he would be inside doing work or sleeping or training. All night he would be um… um what's the p-word for walking?"

Justin looked at his sister in mild amusement. He himself was managing to hold onto his senses. "I think the word you were looking for is patrolling, but perambulating gives it a bit more flair don't you think?" he said condescendingly. Alex flipped him off.  
"Anyway," Max said, "How do you know so much stuff about him? Were you his boyfriend or something?" he giggled at the lame joke

"Because I, um, took an interest in his life, rather than just having sex with him," he glanced meaningfully at Alex, "or asking him how to a backflip uppercut, or whatever the hell you've been trying to do in the training room for the last 3 weeks."

"Hey the ninja flip of death is a real thing and McCormick was within days of getting me to do that for real. Then he had to go and die like an asshole," Max grumbled.

"Hey he was my boyfriend I think I have the most right to be upset!" Alex yelled at her brother, louder than she intended.

"Oh yeah, if the qualification for a relationship was just sleeping together for three months, and having no feelings for each other, then sure he was your boyfriend," Max yelled back sarcastically. Surrounding tables had interrupted their drunken activities to look at the sibling conflict. Justin, mortified by the attention, telepathically asked them to go back to whatever they were doing. Mancopolis citizens, however, were wizards and they were nothing if not always game for a potential bust up. There would be videos on Wiztube already if he was any judge

Alex got up from the table then and ran to the door. Her hand was covering her face and it was difficult to tell whether she needed to vomit or just cry. Or both.

"Alex, come back, you know he didn't mean it, it was the alcohol talking!" Justin cried out after his sister. "You see what you did? I knew we shouldn't have come here straight after the funeral."

"I don't need this shit," Max glowered at the whole of the room, who currently seemed very interested in their drinks. He stood and looked around again. Under his withering gaze the crowd found obscure spots on the walls to look at. Or furniture. Or their own chairs. Or anything other than Max or their companions at risk of bursting into laughter.

Max stamped away, leaving Justin drowning in the embarrassed silence of the room. Someone near the entrance made some sort of comment, snickered and was then shushed into silence. Justin gave a weak smile before getting up to leave also.

The Police, the Security Force, the Cops, the Guards, the Watchmen, the Hunters, or most commonly the shitheads, whatever they were called, the law enforcement officers were not well-liked by the city. As a rule, you didn't _want _to become one. You got forced into it by the economy, your parents or a drunken bet gone too far. There had been a time, not too long ago in fact, when guards had been both respected and revered. There were stories of moonlight chases and great battles where the hero, with slicked back hair had beaten off dozens of foes facing terrible odds.

But they were lost to the past. 8 years ago, Justin remembered, a Crime Ring had formed between all the major gangs both within and beyond the city gates. All the smaller gangs were either absorbed or crushed into the mix. And soon it was virtually impenetrable. Before, they'd been hunting thieves or monsters or lawyers (same thing really) or fraudulent money launderers. But soon they began attacking full-time paid-up killers on every case and that began to take its toll.

The death count began at one and worked its way up to fifty. Then to a hundred. There were headlines every week, until it became old news banished to the obituaries page.

And when the public began getting word that their top defence system against being raped or robbed or murdered, was being whittled down to just a few members getting ever slightly more drunk after every funeral, the street credibility of the Guard had gone into the toilet faster than the curry the cops would eat after every funeral.

And now this watchman, no this _man, this mortal human (albeit magical) man_, was interrupting their drinking. To the befuddled minds of the drinkers this seemed to be a great crime. If the bartender hadn't stepped in at this point there could have been some serious… well the drinkers would have had something to say anyway. Quite pointed remarks would be made. And then the alcohol fog would take over, and they'd forget the events of tonight before it all came back in one great rush, known as the 'hang-over.'

"All right shows over people [cliché I know], you've had your fun no go back to getting drunk, you can beat the son of a bitch to a pulp later." The crowd tittered at the remark. Justin tried to ignore the abuse being hurled at him telepathically. He was looking at the floor disconsolately and so didn't notice the outstretched foot.

He went flying into a pool of what he seriously hoped was beer. He stood trying to block out the laughter and found himself staring into the most beautiful face he had ever seen. Unfortunately for him, like most of the aesthetically attractive women he met, she was scowling.

"Aren't you going to pay the cheque," she asked icily as the room mercifully went back to the drunken conversations. She handed him a long receipt, "you owe us Wiz$150.00."

"What? What the hell were those guys drinking?" he was in disbelief, remembering he'd made 2 Wiz$5.00 beers last the whole evening. He looked back into the cold expression on the waitress's face. Despite her sub-zero expression he felt several degrees hotter. He stammered like a moron before she couldn't help but laugh hysterically at the moron in front of her.

"I-um-I c-can-ca um. I well, I you see I don't actually have enough money to um pay for the uh, the–"

"You can't pay us?" there was the ice again. "How much do you actually have?"

Justin reached as far down into his pockets but could only summon Wiz$37.62.

"Can I give you the rest tomorrow?"

"With an extra 50 bucks? Sure." She turned on her heel and left.

Justin left hurriedly after his exchange with the Greek goddess. Outside he held the bridge of his nose and sighed, before walking down the dark empty street, trying to find his missing siblings. All the while he thought about, the girl he had just met and pondered the name he'd seen on the tag.

Could she seriously be called Diamond Ring? That had to be one of those names they gave to waitresses to make them seem, well seem more approachable? He didn't know. To be honest he thought it made her sound more like a whore but then again… God had he really just thought that. He had to stop drinking. He'd been doing it far too much lately. But then he had had cause.

He wandered aimlessly for an hour before eventually finding himself outside the Watchtower. He opened the door and found…

His sister. On the floor. Completely motionless.

He heard footsteps behind him and saw Max coming into the building.

"Hey man, have you seen Alex, I wanna apologise for…" he trailed off as he saw Alex.

They then spoke what they were both thinking, "Shit."

That was all there was to say.


End file.
